


Ambassador General

by wheel_pen



Series: Loose Gems [23]
Category: House M.D., The West Wing
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-10
Updated: 2015-05-10
Packaged: 2018-03-29 20:36:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3909799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The collective ambassador for a group of obscure countries visits the White House—along with his multiple husbands and wives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ambassador General

**Author's Note:**

> The bad words are censored; that’s just how I do things. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this alternate universe, which I own nothing from.

            Lisa smiled at her husband, just a little bit nervous, as the door shut with him on the other side of it. He had winked at her before he left. She quickly turned back to the woman sitting on the other side of the antique table bearing tea and finger sandwiches. “Madame, I wish to thank you for your very kind invitation to me,” Lisa began, urging her hands to keep still in her lap. “It is so important to my husband and I—well, to all of us—that the Annalian League Nations receive a warm welcome from the United States.”

            The woman she spoke to smiled smartly and brushed a strand of thick chestnut hair away from her face. “First of all,” she began, “you _must_ call me ‘Abbey.’ Tea?”

**

            C. J. leaned back in her chair and regarded the woman across from her, with her crisply-tailored pantsuit and serious, yet somehow angelic, pale face. “So, you’re the Ambassador’s wife, as well as his press secretary? Is that unusual in your country?”

            Allison smiled, just a little bit. C. J. thought she should probably do it more often, if she wanted to put people at ease. “In our country, it is unusual for my husband to _receive_ much press,” she admitted. “It was a... part-time position, at most.”

            “If you don’t mind me saying so, ma’am,” C. J. commented, feeling a little bit odd about calling a woman in her late twenties ‘ma’am,’ “I think it’s going to take a lot more time now that he’s Ambassador General for the Annalian League. You _will_ have staff to assist you, right?”

**

            “Ginger!” Toby bellowed as soon as he had shut the door to his office.

            The redhead appeared out of nowhere. “Yes?”

            “Why is there—“ He tried again. “There’s a teenage girl in my office.”

            “Yes,” Ginger confirmed, and started to walk away.

            Toby made noises to stop her. “She’s like, eighteen, and she says she’s the wife of this new ambassador, and I don’t know if it’s just a language thing and she means ‘daughter,’ I really _hope_ she means daughter—“

            “You’re complaining about a teenage girl in your office?” Ginger asked him pointedly.

            Toby rubbed his forehead. “Yes! She says she was supposed to come see me, and I don’t know _why_ , and I don’t know what to do with her.”

            “Maybe we could find her a PlayStation,” suggested Bonnie as she passed by.

            “And some lollipops,” Ginger added knowingly.

            Toby sighed in frustration, not for the first or, he feared, last time.

**

            “No kidding?!” Donna asked incredulously.

            “Absolutely. All through secondary school,” the blond man assured her.

            “That is incredible,” she breathed, staring deeply into his eyes. “Do you believe I have never, ever met a man who played the flute before?”

            “No!” Robert answered, leaning back on the desk in the bullpen. “Never?”

            “Well,” Donna allowed, “this one time I met this guy during a band contest my junior—no, sophomore—no, junior—year, and _he_ played the flute, but I’m pretty sure he was—“

            “DONNA!!”

            She dropped her bag of chips on the desk and stood up. “Excuse me,” she told Robert politely. “I’ll go see if Josh is free yet.”

            “No rush,” Robert assured her.

            Donna walked into Josh’s office and regarded her boss behind the piles of paperwork cluttering his desk. “You know, Robert Chase has been waiting out there for almost twenty minutes,” she told him pointedly.

            “Yeah, I’m sure you’re upset about that,” Josh replied snidely, shuffling through the papers in front of him. “Have you gotten _any_ work done since he showed up? Like say, those reports I asked you for?”

            Donna handed him a folder he hadn’t seen her bring in. “I’m just trying to keep him from getting bored and ticked off and going back to the Ambassador to tell him that the White House Deputy Chief of Staff won’t see his assistant for even _five minutes_.”

            “Do you see me doing work here?” Josh asked rhetorically, spreading his hands over the mess on his desk.

            “No, I see you making _me_ do work, while you stare at things,” the blond shot back tartly.

            Josh narrowed his eyes at her. “Go back out there and make sure the pretty prep school boy doesn’t steal any state secrets. I’ll let you know when I get to a break.”

**

            “So, how long have you worked for the Ambassador?” Sam asked the man across the table from him, glancing over the notes in his folder.

            “About twenty years.”

            Sam’s head snapped up. James Wilson couldn’t be much older than _he_ was. “Wow, you guys start diplomacy young,” he commented lightly.

            Wilson smiled a little. “Absolutely,” he confirmed. “And once we find a team that works well, we tend to keep it together. We both started out working for his mother, who was also an ambassador.”

            “Well, I always say, the family that negotiates together, stays together,” Sam joked brightly. Wilson cocked his head to the side a bit, but the smile stayed in place. Still, Sam figured that was probably enough of the bad jokes for the day.

            “That’s exactly what _we_ say. Although it sounds better in our language.”

**

            “I have to admit, I don’t completely understand the idea of an Ambassador General,” President Bartlet told his guest, settling into his chair in the Oval Office. It was a softball opening; of _course_ the President understood the concept.

            The slender, impeccably-tailored man across from him shrugged slightly. “May I ask, Mr. President, how many League nations you’re aware of?”

            The President thought back to his briefing that morning. “I believe Leo mentioned ten. That’s ten that have _revealed themselves_ to us,” he added, a bit dramatically.

            “If they all had ambassadors, you’d have ten people to meet with, instead of just one,” Ambassador House explained, “plus we would have to find office space for ten embassies, and the price of real estate in New York City these days is a bit steep for that kind of investment. Especially when you consider that most of the diplomatic staff would just sit around twiddling their thumbs, because their home countries really don’t care at all about the United States.”

            Well. So much for softball.

**

            “Oh, no, I _do_ understand exactly what you’re talking about,” Lisa assured the First Lady. “My mother was a general practitioner, and my sister is a neurosurgeon, so I have heard _many_ such stories.”

            Abbey smiled at the woman over her teacup. “Really? _That_ is wonderful. And what did your father do?”

            “Oh, he was a literature professor at the University,” Lisa told her. “That’s how I met Greg, he had to take one of my father’s classes as a requirement for his degree, and he was so terrible at it he was always in my father’s office asking him questions.”

            “You know, I met my husband in college, too,” Abbey revealed cheerfully, “and under circumstances that were not entirely dissimilar...”

**

            “Well, we _were_ hoping that you could recommend some people,” Allison told the press secretary.

            C. J. gave her a look. “The Ambassador wants the White House to recommend staff for the embassy?”

            “Just a couple of people,” Allison clarified, “who could help us acclimate to America. To keep us from inadvertently saying or doing something Americans would find offensive.”

            C. J. had to admire the idea. “I could make some calls,” she allowed. “So—and don’t take offense at this question—have you actually... studied public relations or anything like that? Ma’am?”

            “Oh, of course,” the younger woman replied, with some enthusiasm. “I have a degree in public relations, and I’ve been working on one in political science.” C. J. raised her eyebrows. “Part time, of course, what with the children.”

            “How many children do you and the Ambassador have?” C. J. asked, seizing on a favorable topic.

            “Six.”

**

            “Nine, Ma’am.”

            Abbey’s eyebrows disappeared under her heavy bangs. “Nine! My goodness!” She laughed a little bit, and Lisa did, too. “And I thought three were difficult enough!”

**

            “So.” Toby cleared his throat and straightened in his chair, trying to remember that he was talking to an ambassador’s wife. Or possibly his daughter. “How long have you and Ambassador House been married?”

            “Only three months,” the girl replied, blushing a little. So, hopefully not his daughter then.

            He glanced at the piece of paper in front of him. “I thought I read that the ambassador had children...”

            Melinda smiled, her mouth and eyes taking up what Toby felt was a disproportionate amount of space on her face. “I am his third wife.”

            Of course. He’d probably ditched the first two when they hit 25. “So.” Leo said talk to her. What the h—l were they supposed to talk about? “Know of any hot-button political issues the Ambassador and the President might disagree about?”

            Melinda shook her head. “Oh no, Greg doesn’t talk to me about work.” Toby was not surprised. He noticed her eyes repeatedly flickering towards something on his desk. “What’s that, Mr. Ziegler?”

            “It’s a Tootsie Pop,” he answered flatly. “Blue Raspberry.” Ginger had foisted it upon him.

            “Candy?” she asked, unconsciously licking her lips.

            “Do you want it?”

**

            “Think of travel to exotic foreign places,” Donna protested. “Think of diplomatic immunity. Think of... being serenaded by the dulcet tones of the flute.”

            “Think of state secrets, conflict of interest, and treason,” Josh countered meanly. “Think of who between you uses more hair-care products. And most importantly,” he added, “think of the fact that a _guy_ plays the _flute_ is probably gonna be more interested in taking _me_ to an exotic foreign place than _you_.”

            Donna pouted, her dreams dashed against the rocks. She clung to whatever broken bits she could find. “Robert isn’t _gay_ ,” she assured Josh.

            “Oh, you’ve made sure of this?”

            “I have _sense_ about these things,” she insisted.

            “Yeah, well, I trust your _sense_ just about as much as I trust the pretty boy’s ability to change a flat tire,” Josh scoffed, straightening his tie.

            “You can’t change a flat tire,” Donna pointed out. “You didn’t even know what the lug nuts were.”

            “Yes, okay,” Josh answered a bit huffily. “All I’m sayin’ is, he played the flute.”

            “And that’s more definitive than my _sense_ how?”

            “Because... it is,” Josh decided. “Send him in.”


End file.
